But after decades, the threat to ecosystems remains – and that includes the built urban environments where we stay cool by pretending air conditioning can compensate for anything.

It can’t.

Why roll back such an effective tool?

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California and other states are suing after the Trump administration proposes a rollback of car-mileage standards and seeks to revoke California's authority to set its own standards under the Clean Air Act. (August 3)
AP

“How can we justify rolling back the most effective tool we have to fix global warming?" Rob Sargent, energy program director for Environment America, told USA TODAY in response to Trump’s plans to reverse Obama-era fuel efficiency standards.

It comes from appealing to people’s selfishness: Freezing fuel efficiency standards will keep the cost of new cars down, said Trump’s minions.

It comes from trying to reduce things to dollars and profits for car makers, who have resisted higher fuel efficiency standards since the days when you could cut the air in Los Angeles with a dull knife.

Now consider some real science that should make your heart ache: Birds are disappearing.

How global warming caused the collapse

A cactus wren in Mojave National Preserve.(Photo: Courtesy of Chelsea Hofmeier/University of California, Berkeley)

A three-year study of the Mojave Desert compared the bird populations now with those know to have lived there 100 years ago. Researchers found 30 percent of the bird species that were observed a century ago are less common and less widespread today.

Global warming is an invasive threat that doesn’t stop at anybody’s boundary.

“Climate change is already having an adverse impact even in our largest national parks and wilderness areas,” Steven Beissinger, UC Berkeley environmental science professor who led the study, said in a press release. “. . . we have got to reduce dependence on fossil fuels by smartly employing green energy,” Beissinger says.